28 ms·

Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers

761 points by masalah 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
speedgoose 6y ago
Meanwhile Apple block our iOS app update because we dare mentioning Android somewhere.
- dariosalvi78 6y ago
  hehehe happened to me as well! you can scam people as much as you want, but do not dare to mention any competitor or you're out
  - arp242 6y ago
    I guess that it's easy to "grep -r Android" these kind of things, whereas you can't really "grep -r is_scam". From what I've been told, they don't even run the apps during the review ("review").
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      They do, just not consistently.
- neurostimulant 6y ago
  In our case it's because an android phone in an image in a webview somewhere. They're incredibly strict with this rule.
jansan 6y ago
What is the worst those scammers have to fear? Having their app banned from the App store? If so, this sounds like a very unethical, but amost risk free business model.
- lloeki 6y ago
  Theoretically, having their Apple-issued dev certificate revoked (IIUC which bans all apps tied to that certificate) and Apple dev account closed. But I guess these folks have contingencies to create new dev accounts that look unrelated and still come out net positive of the dev account cost quickly.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    Creating dev accounts with fraud is super easy. Apple has no way to verify whatever documents they ask for proving your/your company's identity are authentic.
    - SXX 6y ago
      But Apple still have to pay you, right? Wouldn't it be suspicious if payment details doesn't match?
      - Nextgrid 6y ago
        Presumably they already have a solution around that if they're scamming people, or maybe they're in a country where law enforcement is so lacking that this practice is normalized and low-risk, so they can just do this in friends/accomplices' names for a small cut of the profits and not have to worry about concealing their identity from law enforcement.
- valuearb 6y ago
  You don’t get paid for nearly 60 days so if someone reports you all the work you did for your scamming is for naught.
  - jansan 6y ago
    I assume that the money earned neither goes back to the customer nor to the honest competitors. If I am correct here, Apple would even have a financial incentive that these frauds exist.
yarcob 6y ago
Oh my god, they don't even bother implementing the app any more... It reminds me of my first App Store experience. I made an app that was somewhat successful (about 2000€ a month, enough to pay for a students living expenses). Within short time, a chinese speaking developer cloned it. They copied the icon (slighlty different color), they copied the UI, they even copied all the text in the dialog boxes. They released the app with a slightly different name. I contacted Apple to complain about the obvious copyright infringement, but they only forwarded my complaint to the developer. Interestingly enough, the developer actually replied to me. They sent an email threating legal action. I asked them to at least change the icon, and they did. But until today, the rest of the cloned app is still on the app store and competes with my app. It's not comparable to your case, since in my case the competitor wasn't a scammer, just someone with a very lose interpretation of intellectual property. But it makes me feel that Apple really doesn't give a shit what goes on in their store, as long as they make their 30%. (or 15% from small fish like me now)
- lisp-fan-007 6y ago
  Sorry for your experience. Its a very difficult situation. However the issue is if Apple takes a view, they open themselves up to legal risk - they are not the court so its not their place to determine copyright infrigement. Rather, if you get a court order stating infringement, then Apple has to take down the offending app. Whilst yours may be a clear cut case, it is not too difficult to think of examples where it is not copyright infringement or is very difficult to prove - is Signal an infrigement of Whatsapp? I don't think Apple could have done anything differently, to some extent it is your word vs. theirs and the right medium to settle the dispute is the legal system, not Apple.
  - gman83 6y ago
    It's literally against the terms of service, so they could remove it for that reason: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#copycats https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#cop...
    - 6y ago
foepys 6y ago
I think it's time for freelance developers to behave like companies. Write big tech support once, wait a week and if the issue isn't solved, contact a lawyer and let them handle it. Otherwise you will be eternally bouncing around customer support departments until you write a tweet in the hope of getting noticed by somebody afraid of a PR disaster.
- hmottestad 6y ago
  Do you know where the author could have uploaded their videos so they would automatically get DMCAed on facebook?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  What freelance developer has the time and mental energy to deal with a lawyer every time they have to contact support?
  - Ma8ee 6y ago
    Maybe the question should be “what freelance developer has the time and energy to try to do the job of a lawyer” whenever they have some legal issues to resolve.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  I agree, people keep complaining on the internet to try and solve legal problems (terms of use notwithstanding)
- FabHK 6y ago
  > it's time for freelance developers to behave like companies How about: it's time for freelance developers to unionise? Some organisation (self-regulating to represent only legit developers) that can put pressure on Apple, run PR, help with legal, etc. (Maybe funded by 5% of the 30% -> 15% cut savings).
- curryst 6y ago
  Isn't it just going to end up in arbitration anyways? I'm a little wary of the viability of suing Apple until they comply. I hope that it works, but the cynic in me says it's far more likely to trigger a ToS update than it is any kind of change.
pennyintheslot 6y ago
Apple seems to be far more concerned with getting their (30/15) percent cut than with how that revenue was generated. The App Store is full of such examples. As long as you pay the baron his share and don’t upset him with unwelcome thoughts (Parler) or worldly desires (erotica), you are free to reign.
- gregoriol 6y ago
  Tim Cook is an operations person.
- coldtea 6y ago
  So a trully free market (aside from the exceptions you've mentioned), without IP or copyright! The dream of any free-market economist as the best for the customers!
- valuearb 6y ago
  The only way scams like this can be stopped is if Apple review downloads and opens apps after they’ve been approved and placed on the store. And even that is problematic, fo you think these scam screens appear for users in Cupertino?
1_player 6y ago
I never understood the App Store rating figures. Here's the scam app: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499067567 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499... Apparently the paid for 5 stars comments have been deleted, all that's left are comments in the 1 star range but the app is still rated 4.1/5. It's not the first time I see this discrepancy and makes it very hard for a user to understand who to believe: the 1 star comments or the very positive rating average?
- perryizgr8 6y ago
  > makes it very hard for a user to understand who to believe: the 1 star comments or the very positive rating average? Isn't it obvious? Fake reviews will be deleted, but ratings won't be. So disregard the rating and look at the reviews.
  - staticassertion 6y ago
    It's not obvious at all that one piece of information is completely wrong and another, much more difficult to consume piece of information, is accurate.
- djxfade 6y ago
  The app store allows you to submit a rating without a review. That's what you are seeing here.
- grishka 6y ago
  The "more by this developer" app list is also telling. A bunch of utilities, with all of them having in-app purchases, most having weekly subscriptions too. I don't understand how any of these apps passed the review. https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499067567#see-all/developer-other-apps https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499...
  - sneak 6y ago
    It's almost as if the review process exists to maximize Apple's revenue...
matsemann 6y ago
"But I like Apple's walled garden because they verify and quality check everything on there"
- hmottestad 6y ago
  Hits extra close to home when Apple enforces some arbitrary rule for one app (like Amphetamine) and then doesn't even bother to test other apps.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    It's just bike-shedding. Enforcing names or the fact that you mention subscribing to the app on a website is easy whereas testing every app that comes in is hard.
    - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
      For 30% of all revenues, why should anyone give a flying damn about poor Apple having to do its homework?
      - coldtea 6y ago
        Well, they can always take their business elsewhere, where the grass is greener. But they came to the App Store because it's a dozens of billions of dollars a year market...
        majewsky 6y ago
        Which "elsewhere" is there for someone developing an Apple Watch keyboard?
        valuearb 6y ago
        Apparently developers can develop more than one kind of app.
meibo 6y ago
Making a keyboard that has the selling point of "being good on the Apple Watch" seems like a fragile business model to begin with, when Apple's goal should be implementing the best possible keyboard. This has struck custom keyboard vendors in the past(e.g. Gboard stealing basically all custom keyboard market share by implementing stand-out features). Please correct me if I'm missing something. Hope the he can rectify the situation, and in the worst case, possibly rebrand.
- cheschire 6y ago
  A reasonable analogy might be competitive gaming, where the author is trying to be the best of the best and achieve rank 1 on a competitive ladder, but he's losing because the rank 1 player is cheating. You're suggesting they play a different game because the maker of this game is allowing a cheater to nullify the results of the competitive scene. Do you see how it might poor form to tell a person trying to be the best in the world at one specific game to simply play a different game? That's potentially kind of a straw man though. Your suggestion isn't necessarily wrong.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    No his point is to stop playing games anyone can play (including the console maker who has a tremendous incentive to be the best at the game), and build a business with a sustainable competitive advantage. I’ve built an entire business around OS enhancements before, it’s like picking up nickels before a steamroller.
- eXpl0it3r 6y ago
  Probably not infinitely sustainable, but as long as there's the gap in the market, you can very well try to push for being the best in that niche.
perryizgr8 6y ago
Unfortunate, but in the end it is Apple's platform and they have the right to allow anybody they see fit. I'm sure Apple will earn more from the scam app than the real one, since the scam has an exorbitant weekly subscription, so I can see Apple's incentive. If the OP doesn't like it he can make his own Iphone/iwatch with it's own app store and sell billions of phones and watches. Then use those to distribute his app.
- arp242 6y ago
  > they have the right to allow anybody they see fit Within the limits of the law, and I'm not so sure that these scam apps are in most jurisdictions. I'm actually reasonably sure they're not.
  - perryizgr8 6y ago
    Why? If an app scams users, is Apple going to be liable for that?
    - arp242 6y ago
      If they don't take reasonable action on complaints, then yes, of course. Why do you think YouTube etc. are so trigger-happy with DMCA complaints? Exactly to avoid these kind of liability issues.
      - perryizgr8 6y ago
        DMCA is a special case for copyright infringement. I don't think such obligations are there for most other scammy activities.
        arp242 6y ago
        The obligation is to take reasonable steps to ensure that a platform isn't used for illegal activities. This isn't something you can 100% exclude, of course, and what "reasonable steps" are differ per platform, but in the case of an app store "take action against malicious scam apps when notified of their existence" seems quite reasonable to me. The only difference is that copyright/DMCA has a huge industry pursuing this, and there is no one with deep pockets and free time pursuing this.
samtheprogram 6y ago
If you own an Apple Watch, FlickType is a must have. It only works with Messages due to the Apple APIs, but he wasn’t kidding when he said near-iPhone typing speeds. The irony of the whole thing is that this could cue Apple to “sherlock” it, if it wasn’t on their radar already.
thomaspaulmann 6y ago
It’s easy to blame Apple here and to some degree they are responsible for scammers aren’t banned from the App Store. However, why isn’t somebody complaining who got scammed? Don’t they want $400 back? Maybe they do a simple refund and that’s enough for them but there should be some feedback loop to detect scams quickly before they climb the App Store charts.
- gregoriol 6y ago
  As a user, it's not very clear how to complain on the App Store. I did it once and got a refund from Apple, because it was an obvious case. But recently I bought an app that was not obviously problematic: it was meant to do some things, cost a few $, and did indeed do "some" things, however the app actually felt like a tutorial code (maybe even one from Apple) implemented and pushed to the store. Just like that, almost no features, no design or quality. It's difficult to complain, but I clearly couldn't know from the store itself.
- drcongo 6y ago
  Literal victim blaming.
  - matsemann 6y ago
    I think you're misrepresenting his post. He isn't blaming the victims of being scammed, but wondering why Apple hasn't noticed or taken action after they probably (/hopefully) are getting lots of chargeback and complaints from users buying this broken app.
- retSava 6y ago
  > there should be some feedback loop to detect scams quickly before they climb the App Store charts. Well, that's the thing, isn't it? The app store (any app store) which has a review process and takes a great cut of revenue, should stand for quality and safety. Here, that's clearly not the case. For another example, see Amazon problems with fake products. Both Apple and Amazon are large enough and have so much money that you'd think they could spend some of those resources on handling the problem. Perhaps they do, but appears not.
fxtentacle 6y ago
FYI, in situations like this the best way is to: 1. Register your videos and images with the USCO. It'll cost <$100. 2. You can now file DMCA takedowns. Send one to Apple with the USCO registration ID and a copy of the image and a link to the app in question. 3. Apple will either immediately remove that fake app, or be liable for up to $350k in punitive damages for wilful infringement and lose all DMCA protection. 4. If Apple didn't react a week later, approach a lawyer. They'll likely be willing to work purely for 50% commission, because it'll be a slam dunk in court. 5. Repeat the same with Facebook / Youtube if they advertise there with your images or videos. Take Screenshots and write down the url and date and time. Of course, one would hope that Apple will do the right thing, but it's also reasonably easy to force their hand. That said, I don't know anyone for whom app development worked out financially if you fairly price your own labor. So maybe just stay away from cheap apps in general.
- comboy 6y ago
  Some people want to create great, useful apps. That's what they want to do. They are willing to give away half of their earnings to different 3rd parties to just not deal with the bullshit. It's unlikely to be their full time job. They probably don't make that much money on it, cloning happens just when the app begins to make any reasonable profit. So dealing with all your described is just not practical. Time is valuable. If somebody is creative and wants to provide some value, fighting with the system, preparing some documents, registrations hiring lawyers etc. is the last thing they want to and likely would rather abandon the project instead. Life is too short to deal with the bullshit. Not to mention that even if what you said is very reasonable most developers will have no idea. It's scammers (efficient ones) that have to know something about copyright law, DMCAs and so on. Problem is not that easy to solve. App stores can't spend too many hours on each app because there's tons of them, and if they would only invest time in helping those apps that provide enough profit to be worth it, that would create inequality and also many outrages over inevitable false positives. That said there are of course many many things Apple could be doing better, especially given their fees. Also I wish subscription based model would just die. Should only be for cloud based services and wherever possible those should be optional. Or at least as simple thing as automatically not paying for months when you didn't open the app (with very few exceptions like storage services etc). Btw, we should have some attribute for web that marks link as scam/negative. These tweets and HN homepage just made those scam apps easier to find.
marvel_boy 6y ago
Please Apple, do something!
amelius 6y ago
This guy's business was doomed from the start in more than one way. E.g. nothing would stop Apple from copying the idea in the next version of the watch. The idea is simply too generic. And it's a feature, not a product.
- jonathanstrange 6y ago
  I agree, many app makers don't seem to realize that any long-term sustainable software needs to be based on deep know-how (or: tons of features and a strong lead), something that cannot be easily copied. Otherwise it will be copied a thousand times anyway. Some of the copy-cats will have strong financial backing, others will be students in a poor country with almost unlimited time and extremely low costs, and yet others will have extreme marketing skills and channels. That's not to say you cannot make money with trivial ideas. It just seems obvious to me that such apps cannot last very long and you have to go with quantity instead of quality in that case.
  - paul_f 6y ago
    You can also be successful by going deep into a vertical. Be the best for a specific use case and repeat.
risyachka 6y ago
Google does exactly the same. My apps have been cloned or copied many times, with my exact icon or screenshots. It's cute that they have a report button that doesn't work. You can send a billion reports - they not ones have taken the app down.
- SeanLuke 6y ago
  Doesn't this mean that Google has violated the DMCA and you can sue/fine them?
  - Groxx 6y ago
    The report button doesn't file a valid DMCA takedown request, so probably not.
    - SeanLuke 6y ago
      Pretty sure that's not how the law works.
      - Groxx 6y ago
        "The Law" absolutely runs on "when did this piece of paper arrive at this location". I don't know about DCMA specifically, but yes, most cases where one actor claims another actor is doing something wrong require the reporter to follow specific steps or it's not valid.
        SeanLuke 6y ago
        This is nonsense. Google cannot simply provide a fake or broken button and get away with it. If Google is required to provide a mechanism for reporting DMCA violations in a timely manner, and they do not, they're going to found liable no matter what kind of excuse they provide.
        Groxx 6y ago
paxys 6y ago
It's funny that these scam apps and fake reviews can exist in the app store en masse, while everyone on forums like this one will praise Apple for every heavy-handed decision against legitimate apps (which coincidentally were all in Apple's own interests) because hey the walled garden keeps us safe.
- coldtea 6y ago
  Well, there's still this: https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/mobile-security/android-more-infected-than-ios/#:~:text=Android%2Dpowered%20connected%20devices%20are,malware%20when%20compared%20to%20iOS.&text=According%20to%20the%20whitepaper%2C%20Android,iPhones%20for%20less%20than%201%25 https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/mobile-security.... (2019) 50 times LESS likely to be infected with malware sounds like good walled-garden gatekeeping to me, even if it's not perfect...
- valuearb 6y ago
  App Review is hard. Apple does a better job at it than Google, so imagine what is happening on the play store.
  - thesuitonym 6y ago
    Google doesn't lock you into the Play Store, though.
  - AshWolfy 6y ago
    from a user experience point of view it doesnt really matter how much of a distribution platform is compromised, if you reach a tipping point where it become useless. The only real way to use apps stores these days is to have prior knowledge something is legit
  - bhawker 6y ago
    Is this something we just keep repeating, believing it to be true despite examples like this?
    - 6y ago
lucioperca 6y ago
Lol they having million of reviews rating on app which cost 400$ a year which is $$$ for Apple (they get 30% of that). But Apple wont pay someone for looking through these apps and assure the app at least do something similar to what is advertised.
- planb 6y ago
  No, the app is free and so you can rate it without paying anything. The In App Purchase to make the app usable is 400$/year.
  - lucioperca 6y ago
    That does not change anything.
- valuearb 6y ago
  I guarantee this app went through review and that none of the scam screens appeared then.
  - lucioperca 6y ago
    If they push changes, Apple knows it.
    - BenjiWiebe 6y ago
      Not if both screens were in the code all along, and the scam screen is only enabled when www.example.com/check returns true.
techaddict009 6y ago
So many people have reported this in past: 2017 - https://johnnylin.medium.com/how-to-make-80-000-per-month-on-the-apple-app-store-bdb943862e88 https://johnnylin.medium.com/how-to-make-80-000-per-month-on... 2016 - https://deepakabbot.medium.com/why-is-apple-allowing-a-scam-in-its-app-store-thousands-of-users-are-losing-money-453476d2d161 https://deepakabbot.medium.com/why-is-apple-allowing-a-scam-... Apple seem to have accepted this as even they earn a lot and are not taking any action. Just go to top charts paid apps and you will see maximum of such spammy/scammy apps. Search any utility keyword (Ex: usd converter, etc.) in App Store and maximum out of top rankers are scammers.
lm28469 6y ago
Remember that you pay a 30% fee because they need the money to maintain their infra and to offer a good platform for users to find your app(s). /s
- coldtea 6y ago
  Yes, so? It's still a 100 billion market they've built, for devices, OSes, and SDKs they build. And it still has better paying customers than the Play store, and 1/50+ less malware (according to stats), so more customer trust. Is it perfect? No.
  - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    >OSes, and SDKs they build They build the OS and SDK on Mac too, why do they not get a % cut on all apps there too? Actually when you're in Safari you're using their OS and SDK too why don't they get a % cut of purchases and software there too? Just interested why one scenario is considered the norm yet these two others that fall under the same justification seem absurd.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      >They build the OS and SDK on Mac too, why do they not get a % cut on all apps there too? Because they chose not to for business/historical reasons. So? >Actually when you're in Safari you're using their OS and SDK too why don't they get a % cut of purchases and software there too? Well, technically you're not using their SDK. Just the OS and the browser engine. The SDK is just the JS runtime. That said, they could. And people could use another platform. >Just interested why one scenario is considered the norm yet these two others that fall under the same justification seem absurd. In the end it's a business decision, with historical (e.g. computers didn't have this model in the past, phones/consoles/etc did), market, and other considerations.
    - alisonkisk 6y ago
      Because it takes time for Apple to migrate everyone over from old expectations, and Apple made a fortune on hardware markup on the computer purchase.
megablast 6y ago
I had one misaligned UI element And it was rejected. What are apple up to?? Do some reviewers just not care?? And neither does apple about bad reviewers.
desmap 6y ago
OT: Most (including me) confuse good products with good business models. Only because a product has killer potential doesn't mean it's based on a good business model and checks all boxes such as defensibility, distribution, lock-ins, dependencies, etc.
- drtz 6y ago
  A good business model will always have a hard time competing with a fraudulent business model.
mcintyre1994 6y ago
One of the many problems here is that the IAP section in the App Store doesn't seem to support subscriptions at all. Unlock keyboard £14.99 KeyWatch - Watch Keyboard PRO £7.99 KeyWatch - Watch Keyboard VIP £29.49 KeyWatch - Watch Keyboard VIP £2.99 Premium £14.99 That's the IAPs for the scam app. If it wasn't a scam app then £7.99 to unlock all the features might be fine. But £7.99/wk subscription is obviously wildly different, and you wouldn't know that's what's going on from the App Store.
cm2187 6y ago
How does he know it is a $2m a year scammer? It could be run from the room next door of his college dorm.
ikurei 6y ago
An app that does nothing passed review? I hope this doesn't happen often, and that the processes are reviewed. May be reviewers have too much work to do and just click OK sometimes to move on? Also, I understand that the App store has a million apps, and they can't be super thorough with all of them. What I don't understand is how an app that is actually getting a lot of downloads and reviews, and that charges a huge ammount of money, and that is promoted very up in search, doesn't make it to the top of the "let's really review this" priority list.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- swiley 6y ago
  The App Store review is about protecting Apple, not the users.
- valuearb 6y ago
  The scammers scammed App Review, it’s not hard to do or understand. What the reviewers saw isn’t what customers see.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    If the scammers are going to the effort to create apps that can actually pass review, why not just sell those apps unaltered?
    - ncann 6y ago
      Because the scammed version is way more profitable? They can code up some buttons in a layout roughly resembling a keyboard that insert the character when clicked on in like 15 minutes which will probably pass review. The "keyboard" of course will be unusable for practical purpose.
      - shawnz 6y ago
        If the "keyboard" wasn't usable for practical purposes then why did it pass review? A stronger review process could refuse such apps. And if the "keyboard" was usable for practical purposes then why would the scammer waste the chance to monetize those practical, working features which they sunk their own time developing?
kelvin0 6y ago
I've heard it called : dancing with the dragon. Refers to the 'power' it gives to developers to soar high on a dragon and wield unknown riches and promise for a time. Then sometime the dragon coughs, and well you get burned to a crisp ... Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Youtube are all dragons (naming only those).
djohnston 6y ago
Walled garden lol! Don't you feel safe?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bawana 6y ago
So then the only recourse is for you to produce 10 cloned apps of YOUR own app-each w a different color, font, and language. Well maybe a hundred clones? each for a different geographical location? Since you own all of them, you would swamp out any competition.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  You gotta be as good as the scammers at advertisement-buying and other marketing. That is their real skill-set.
AlexandrB 6y ago
This might be "old man shaking fist at clouds", but was crapware this bad before centralized app stores? I know it was out there - most famously stuffed into SourceForge downloads - but it didn't seem to be as prevalent. Though perhaps it's more a reflection of increased ROI from doing things like this in 2021 vs 2001.
- DataGata 6y ago
  > was crapware this bad before centralized app stores? Yes, 100% yes. Back in the day, a Boomer web browser was a half a screen of installed toolbars.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  It was even worse back then. At least with the App Store, I can set my parents free on it and they won’t get a keylogger or remote access tool installed unwittingly. Not to mention malware back then slowed the computers down to a crawl and was a pain in the ass if not impossible to remove. Now it’s just holding it and pressing the little x. I remember that reinstalling Windows was a regular thing to do to get rid of the garbage.
newscracker 6y ago
A scammy subscription of $400+ a year?! And this gets to the top of the charts because Apple makes more money from it! These are the instances where the 30% commission (or even the recently announced 15% commission for those earning less than $1M in revenue a year) seems like extortion. Apple really needs to step up on app reviews in terms of false positives (banning legitimate apps for frivolous reasons and reinstating them after social media uproar) and false negatives (allowing scam apps and clones to thrive while hurting the original apps). Hopefully the threats of regulation can’t manifest soon enough for this to get better for the developers and the users. On one side of the equation you have the developers and users for whom the App Store ecosystem is getting toxic. On the other side of the equation you have two parties making a lot of money for low effort — the crooks and Apple. This is not a good look, Tim Apple and Apple. (I don’t even want to get into how much worse the Play Store is since it’s a digression from the topic)
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  One thing I'd like to see instituted is more extensive review for apps with purchases/subscriptions over a certain value. "If you wanna charge more than $100/year, we're gonna vet it more carefully".
  - newscracker 6y ago
    That makes sense. But there would have to be much lower limits even on a weekly and monthly basis. How much lower is a bit subjective (even what seems like a small amount to one person may be a big amount for another). From reviews I’ve seen for some apps, it seems like users don’t even know how to approach Apple for refunds when the app is scammy or doesn’t work as promised. This latter part should also be made easier. All this will require additional staff, which Apple can surely afford without having a big dent in its margins.
  - dawnerd 6y ago
    I wonder how much of the app store is purely automated at this point. Any human reviewing this should have spotted that it's a scam very quickly.
maeln 6y ago
This is a problem that poison every platform these days. Apple Store and Play Store are full of borderline or outright scam apps. Google and Facebook keep pushing literal scam or porn-baiting advertisement[0]. Every search engine is poisoned by those shitty top-X, article spamming, fake news website making searching for an answer to some question a real chore. Amazon is full of fake product and scam. Even Steam is now spammed with shitty game that are sometimes not even playable ... The current states of the "mainstream" internet just make it way to easy to make money making the cheapest content possible or scam. And the company / individual running those are usually in country that keep them safe from any legal repercussion so they can keep doing it over and over again. While not everything is easily fixable, a lot would be better if Google, Apple, Amazon and co would finally step in and enforce their "quality control", make every app, ads, etc, go through and actual human verification process, but that would hurt there margin and it looks like they have no incentive in doing that. They usually have a monopoly or at least a duopoly, so why would they care about the cesspool that their services have become ? Its not like another company can compete with them. Want to have a real quality app store ? Its not possible on Apple devices and Google make it as hard as possible. Want to compete with Youtube or Twitch ? Be ready to throw a lot of money to attract customer and creator and still fail (hello Mixer) or become a cesspool either way (hello DailyMotion, rutube, ...). Sure you can try DMCA take down, copyright infringement lawsuit, ... But it will cost you a lot of time and money, which could have been put in your product, and it will be ultimately useless. By the time the request is processed or the lawsuit takes places, they will have already created 10 more clone, push 100 more scam, and other fun stuff. [0] Google literally allowed a ad for a "one night stand" app that use a underage girl in ad: https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/l9y8rz/ya_til_que_moi_qui_est_d%C3%A9rang%C3%A9_par_le_fait_que/ https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/l9y8rz/ya_til_que_m...
gameswithgo 6y ago
The IOS app store being full of garbage is why I can't believe people try to use the "A monopoly store is better because it improves the user experience" angle. To me its worse.
kharak 6y ago
I'm late to the party. But this seems to be a policy problem, no? There needs to be a real incentive for Apple and other platforms to prevent this scams. Off the top of my head, I wonder if you couldn't make Apple have to pay a flat fee and all revenue made from the scam to the lawyer proving that this is a scam. That would create a merket for anti-scam lawyers, resulting in quickly hunting down all scammers on the platform.
z3t4 6y ago
This is what happends if there is a monopoly. And this will eventually kill Apples monopoly.
Shivetya 6y ago
Really wish Apple would limit unlocks to no more than the App cost in the store. As in, if the developer wants to sell you $39 dollars of features, game play items, or such, after you obtain the app they are limited per year to the cost of the app from the initial purchase off the store. The number of apps with obscene monthly and yearly charges that snag people is too numerous to count and Apple doesn't even police this aspect
Someone 6y ago
“Tap to "unlock", and you're now 1 step away from confirming a $416/year subscription.” I would think that “1 step” involves accepting a dialog that shows you this will cost $8 a week. If so, that doesn’t put Apple off the hook (it certainly is a major change from early App Store, when they removed the “I am Rich” app, which was totally honest in what functionality it provided (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich)), but does move some blame to the user. As I said, it doesn’t put Apple off the hook. Even if they think selling such apps is a good idea, I think that, for subscriptions, Apple should mention price per year, too (I guess they don’t, but am not willing to try with such an app). That might prevent many users who scan the dialog, see “$8”, find that reasonable for buying a feature, and click “subscribe” from clicking on that button.
molszanski 6y ago
I have a very strong opinion, that the only way to fix this problem systemically is to have an open system, at least in part. Not some radar or any other closed system, but public lists of sham & shame. If we want to get rid of mold we should shine a light on it
admax88q 6y ago
Oh so i cant actually trust the walles garden apple has curated. Everyone told me that locking my device to the curated app store is for my own safety. Let Apple select the software you can run so that youre safe from scams. Good to know thats not true. I still have to be vigilant _and_ accept heavy restrictions.
chansiky 6y ago
Considering Apple is all about quality, wouldn't it be in apple's best interest to do proper quality checks on the apps in their ecosystem?

761 points by masalah 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

speedgoose 6y ago

Meanwhile Apple block our iOS app update because we dare mentioning Android somewhere.

dariosalvi78 6y ago
hehehe happened to me as well! you can scam people as much as you want, but do not dare to mention any competitor or you're out
- arp242 6y ago
  I guess that it's easy to "grep -r Android" these kind of things, whereas you can't really "grep -r is_scam". From what I've been told, they don't even run the apps during the review ("review").
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    They do, just not consistently.
neurostimulant 6y ago
In our case it's because an android phone in an image in a webview somewhere. They're incredibly strict with this rule.

jansan 6y ago

What is the worst those scammers have to fear? Having their app banned from the App store? If so, this sounds like a very unethical, but amost risk free business model.

lloeki 6y ago
Theoretically, having their Apple-issued dev certificate revoked (IIUC which bans all apps tied to that certificate) and Apple dev account closed. But I guess these folks have contingencies to create new dev accounts that look unrelated and still come out net positive of the dev account cost quickly.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Creating dev accounts with fraud is super easy. Apple has no way to verify whatever documents they ask for proving your/your company's identity are authentic.
  - SXX 6y ago
    But Apple still have to pay you, right? Wouldn't it be suspicious if payment details doesn't match?
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      Presumably they already have a solution around that if they're scamming people, or maybe they're in a country where law enforcement is so lacking that this practice is normalized and low-risk, so they can just do this in friends/accomplices' names for a small cut of the profits and not have to worry about concealing their identity from law enforcement.
valuearb 6y ago
You don’t get paid for nearly 60 days so if someone reports you all the work you did for your scamming is for naught.
- jansan 6y ago
  I assume that the money earned neither goes back to the customer nor to the honest competitors. If I am correct here, Apple would even have a financial incentive that these frauds exist.

yarcob 6y ago

Oh my god, they don't even bother implementing the app any more... It reminds me of my first App Store experience. I made an app that was somewhat successful (about 2000€ a month, enough to pay for a students living expenses). Within short time, a chinese speaking developer cloned it. They copied the icon (slighlty different color), they copied the UI, they even copied all the text in the dialog boxes. They released the app with a slightly different name. I contacted Apple to complain about the obvious copyright infringement, but they only forwarded my complaint to the developer. Interestingly enough, the developer actually replied to me. They sent an email threating legal action. I asked them to at least change the icon, and they did. But until today, the rest of the cloned app is still on the app store and competes with my app. It's not comparable to your case, since in my case the competitor wasn't a scammer, just someone with a very lose interpretation of intellectual property. But it makes me feel that Apple really doesn't give a shit what goes on in their store, as long as they make their 30%. (or 15% from small fish like me now)

lisp-fan-007 6y ago
Sorry for your experience. Its a very difficult situation. However the issue is if Apple takes a view, they open themselves up to legal risk - they are not the court so its not their place to determine copyright infrigement. Rather, if you get a court order stating infringement, then Apple has to take down the offending app. Whilst yours may be a clear cut case, it is not too difficult to think of examples where it is not copyright infringement or is very difficult to prove - is Signal an infrigement of Whatsapp? I don't think Apple could have done anything differently, to some extent it is your word vs. theirs and the right medium to settle the dispute is the legal system, not Apple.
- gman83 6y ago
  It's literally against the terms of service, so they could remove it for that reason: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#copycats https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#cop...
  - 6y ago

foepys 6y ago

I think it's time for freelance developers to behave like companies. Write big tech support once, wait a week and if the issue isn't solved, contact a lawyer and let them handle it. Otherwise you will be eternally bouncing around customer support departments until you write a tweet in the hope of getting noticed by somebody afraid of a PR disaster.

hmottestad 6y ago
Do you know where the author could have uploaded their videos so they would automatically get DMCAed on facebook?
saagarjha 6y ago
What freelance developer has the time and mental energy to deal with a lawyer every time they have to contact support?
- Ma8ee 6y ago
  Maybe the question should be “what freelance developer has the time and energy to try to do the job of a lawyer” whenever they have some legal issues to resolve.
raverbashing 6y ago
I agree, people keep complaining on the internet to try and solve legal problems (terms of use notwithstanding)
FabHK 6y ago
> it's time for freelance developers to behave like companies How about: it's time for freelance developers to unionise? Some organisation (self-regulating to represent only legit developers) that can put pressure on Apple, run PR, help with legal, etc. (Maybe funded by 5% of the 30% -> 15% cut savings).
curryst 6y ago
Isn't it just going to end up in arbitration anyways? I'm a little wary of the viability of suing Apple until they comply. I hope that it works, but the cynic in me says it's far more likely to trigger a ToS update than it is any kind of change.

pennyintheslot 6y ago

Apple seems to be far more concerned with getting their (30/15) percent cut than with how that revenue was generated. The App Store is full of such examples. As long as you pay the baron his share and don’t upset him with unwelcome thoughts (Parler) or worldly desires (erotica), you are free to reign.

gregoriol 6y ago
Tim Cook is an operations person.
coldtea 6y ago
So a trully free market (aside from the exceptions you've mentioned), without IP or copyright! The dream of any free-market economist as the best for the customers!
valuearb 6y ago
The only way scams like this can be stopped is if Apple review downloads and opens apps after they’ve been approved and placed on the store. And even that is problematic, fo you think these scam screens appear for users in Cupertino?

1_player 6y ago

I never understood the App Store rating figures. Here's the scam app: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499067567 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499... Apparently the paid for 5 stars comments have been deleted, all that's left are comments in the 1 star range but the app is still rated 4.1/5. It's not the first time I see this discrepancy and makes it very hard for a user to understand who to believe: the 1 star comments or the very positive rating average?

perryizgr8 6y ago
> makes it very hard for a user to understand who to believe: the 1 star comments or the very positive rating average? Isn't it obvious? Fake reviews will be deleted, but ratings won't be. So disregard the rating and look at the reviews.
- staticassertion 6y ago
  It's not obvious at all that one piece of information is completely wrong and another, much more difficult to consume piece of information, is accurate.
djxfade 6y ago
The app store allows you to submit a rating without a review. That's what you are seeing here.
grishka 6y ago
The "more by this developer" app list is also telling. A bunch of utilities, with all of them having in-app purchases, most having weekly subscriptions too. I don't understand how any of these apps passed the review. https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499067567#see-all/developer-other-apps https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499...
- sneak 6y ago
  It's almost as if the review process exists to maximize Apple's revenue...

matsemann 6y ago

"But I like Apple's walled garden because they verify and quality check everything on there"

hmottestad 6y ago
Hits extra close to home when Apple enforces some arbitrary rule for one app (like Amphetamine) and then doesn't even bother to test other apps.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  It's just bike-shedding. Enforcing names or the fact that you mention subscribing to the app on a website is easy whereas testing every app that comes in is hard.
  - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
    For 30% of all revenues, why should anyone give a flying damn about poor Apple having to do its homework?
    - coldtea 6y ago
      Well, they can always take their business elsewhere, where the grass is greener. But they came to the App Store because it's a dozens of billions of dollars a year market...
      - majewsky 6y ago
        Which "elsewhere" is there for someone developing an Apple Watch keyboard?
        valuearb 6y ago
        Apparently developers can develop more than one kind of app.

meibo 6y ago

Making a keyboard that has the selling point of "being good on the Apple Watch" seems like a fragile business model to begin with, when Apple's goal should be implementing the best possible keyboard. This has struck custom keyboard vendors in the past(e.g. Gboard stealing basically all custom keyboard market share by implementing stand-out features). Please correct me if I'm missing something. Hope the he can rectify the situation, and in the worst case, possibly rebrand.

cheschire 6y ago
A reasonable analogy might be competitive gaming, where the author is trying to be the best of the best and achieve rank 1 on a competitive ladder, but he's losing because the rank 1 player is cheating. You're suggesting they play a different game because the maker of this game is allowing a cheater to nullify the results of the competitive scene. Do you see how it might poor form to tell a person trying to be the best in the world at one specific game to simply play a different game? That's potentially kind of a straw man though. Your suggestion isn't necessarily wrong.
- valuearb 6y ago
  No his point is to stop playing games anyone can play (including the console maker who has a tremendous incentive to be the best at the game), and build a business with a sustainable competitive advantage. I’ve built an entire business around OS enhancements before, it’s like picking up nickels before a steamroller.
eXpl0it3r 6y ago
Probably not infinitely sustainable, but as long as there's the gap in the market, you can very well try to push for being the best in that niche.

perryizgr8 6y ago

Unfortunate, but in the end it is Apple's platform and they have the right to allow anybody they see fit. I'm sure Apple will earn more from the scam app than the real one, since the scam has an exorbitant weekly subscription, so I can see Apple's incentive. If the OP doesn't like it he can make his own Iphone/iwatch with it's own app store and sell billions of phones and watches. Then use those to distribute his app.

arp242 6y ago
> they have the right to allow anybody they see fit Within the limits of the law, and I'm not so sure that these scam apps are in most jurisdictions. I'm actually reasonably sure they're not.
- perryizgr8 6y ago
  Why? If an app scams users, is Apple going to be liable for that?
  - arp242 6y ago
    If they don't take reasonable action on complaints, then yes, of course. Why do you think YouTube etc. are so trigger-happy with DMCA complaints? Exactly to avoid these kind of liability issues.
    - perryizgr8 6y ago
      DMCA is a special case for copyright infringement. I don't think such obligations are there for most other scammy activities.
      - arp242 6y ago
        The obligation is to take reasonable steps to ensure that a platform isn't used for illegal activities. This isn't something you can 100% exclude, of course, and what "reasonable steps" are differ per platform, but in the case of an app store "take action against malicious scam apps when notified of their existence" seems quite reasonable to me. The only difference is that copyright/DMCA has a huge industry pursuing this, and there is no one with deep pockets and free time pursuing this.

samtheprogram 6y ago

If you own an Apple Watch, FlickType is a must have. It only works with Messages due to the Apple APIs, but he wasn’t kidding when he said near-iPhone typing speeds. The irony of the whole thing is that this could cue Apple to “sherlock” it, if it wasn’t on their radar already.

thomaspaulmann 6y ago

It’s easy to blame Apple here and to some degree they are responsible for scammers aren’t banned from the App Store. However, why isn’t somebody complaining who got scammed? Don’t they want $400 back? Maybe they do a simple refund and that’s enough for them but there should be some feedback loop to detect scams quickly before they climb the App Store charts.

gregoriol 6y ago
As a user, it's not very clear how to complain on the App Store. I did it once and got a refund from Apple, because it was an obvious case. But recently I bought an app that was not obviously problematic: it was meant to do some things, cost a few $, and did indeed do "some" things, however the app actually felt like a tutorial code (maybe even one from Apple) implemented and pushed to the store. Just like that, almost no features, no design or quality. It's difficult to complain, but I clearly couldn't know from the store itself.
drcongo 6y ago
Literal victim blaming.
- matsemann 6y ago
  I think you're misrepresenting his post. He isn't blaming the victims of being scammed, but wondering why Apple hasn't noticed or taken action after they probably (/hopefully) are getting lots of chargeback and complaints from users buying this broken app.
retSava 6y ago
> there should be some feedback loop to detect scams quickly before they climb the App Store charts. Well, that's the thing, isn't it? The app store (any app store) which has a review process and takes a great cut of revenue, should stand for quality and safety. Here, that's clearly not the case. For another example, see Amazon problems with fake products. Both Apple and Amazon are large enough and have so much money that you'd think they could spend some of those resources on handling the problem. Perhaps they do, but appears not.

fxtentacle 6y ago

FYI, in situations like this the best way is to: 1. Register your videos and images with the USCO. It'll cost <$100. 2. You can now file DMCA takedowns. Send one to Apple with the USCO registration ID and a copy of the image and a link to the app in question. 3. Apple will either immediately remove that fake app, or be liable for up to $350k in punitive damages for wilful infringement and lose all DMCA protection. 4. If Apple didn't react a week later, approach a lawyer. They'll likely be willing to work purely for 50% commission, because it'll be a slam dunk in court. 5. Repeat the same with Facebook / Youtube if they advertise there with your images or videos. Take Screenshots and write down the url and date and time. Of course, one would hope that Apple will do the right thing, but it's also reasonably easy to force their hand. That said, I don't know anyone for whom app development worked out financially if you fairly price your own labor. So maybe just stay away from cheap apps in general.

comboy 6y ago
Some people want to create great, useful apps. That's what they want to do. They are willing to give away half of their earnings to different 3rd parties to just not deal with the bullshit. It's unlikely to be their full time job. They probably don't make that much money on it, cloning happens just when the app begins to make any reasonable profit. So dealing with all your described is just not practical. Time is valuable. If somebody is creative and wants to provide some value, fighting with the system, preparing some documents, registrations hiring lawyers etc. is the last thing they want to and likely would rather abandon the project instead. Life is too short to deal with the bullshit. Not to mention that even if what you said is very reasonable most developers will have no idea. It's scammers (efficient ones) that have to know something about copyright law, DMCAs and so on. Problem is not that easy to solve. App stores can't spend too many hours on each app because there's tons of them, and if they would only invest time in helping those apps that provide enough profit to be worth it, that would create inequality and also many outrages over inevitable false positives. That said there are of course many many things Apple could be doing better, especially given their fees. Also I wish subscription based model would just die. Should only be for cloud based services and wherever possible those should be optional. Or at least as simple thing as automatically not paying for months when you didn't open the app (with very few exceptions like storage services etc). Btw, we should have some attribute for web that marks link as scam/negative. These tweets and HN homepage just made those scam apps easier to find.

marvel_boy 6y ago

Please Apple, do something!

amelius 6y ago

This guy's business was doomed from the start in more than one way. E.g. nothing would stop Apple from copying the idea in the next version of the watch. The idea is simply too generic. And it's a feature, not a product.

jonathanstrange 6y ago
I agree, many app makers don't seem to realize that any long-term sustainable software needs to be based on deep know-how (or: tons of features and a strong lead), something that cannot be easily copied. Otherwise it will be copied a thousand times anyway. Some of the copy-cats will have strong financial backing, others will be students in a poor country with almost unlimited time and extremely low costs, and yet others will have extreme marketing skills and channels. That's not to say you cannot make money with trivial ideas. It just seems obvious to me that such apps cannot last very long and you have to go with quantity instead of quality in that case.
- paul_f 6y ago
  You can also be successful by going deep into a vertical. Be the best for a specific use case and repeat.

risyachka 6y ago

Google does exactly the same. My apps have been cloned or copied many times, with my exact icon or screenshots. It's cute that they have a report button that doesn't work. You can send a billion reports - they not ones have taken the app down.

SeanLuke 6y ago
Doesn't this mean that Google has violated the DMCA and you can sue/fine them?
- Groxx 6y ago
  The report button doesn't file a valid DMCA takedown request, so probably not.
  - SeanLuke 6y ago
    Pretty sure that's not how the law works.
    - Groxx 6y ago
      "The Law" absolutely runs on "when did this piece of paper arrive at this location". I don't know about DCMA specifically, but yes, most cases where one actor claims another actor is doing something wrong require the reporter to follow specific steps or it's not valid.
      - SeanLuke 6y ago
        This is nonsense. Google cannot simply provide a fake or broken button and get away with it. If Google is required to provide a mechanism for reporting DMCA violations in a timely manner, and they do not, they're going to found liable no matter what kind of excuse they provide.
        Groxx 6y ago

paxys 6y ago

It's funny that these scam apps and fake reviews can exist in the app store en masse, while everyone on forums like this one will praise Apple for every heavy-handed decision against legitimate apps (which coincidentally were all in Apple's own interests) because hey the walled garden keeps us safe.

coldtea 6y ago
Well, there's still this: https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/mobile-security/android-more-infected-than-ios/#:~:text=Android%2Dpowered%20connected%20devices%20are,malware%20when%20compared%20to%20iOS.&text=According%20to%20the%20whitepaper%2C%20Android,iPhones%20for%20less%20than%201%25 https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/mobile-security.... (2019) 50 times LESS likely to be infected with malware sounds like good walled-garden gatekeeping to me, even if it's not perfect...
valuearb 6y ago
App Review is hard. Apple does a better job at it than Google, so imagine what is happening on the play store.
- thesuitonym 6y ago
  Google doesn't lock you into the Play Store, though.
- AshWolfy 6y ago
  from a user experience point of view it doesnt really matter how much of a distribution platform is compromised, if you reach a tipping point where it become useless. The only real way to use apps stores these days is to have prior knowledge something is legit
- bhawker 6y ago
  Is this something we just keep repeating, believing it to be true despite examples like this?
  - 6y ago

lucioperca 6y ago

Lol they having million of reviews rating on app which cost 400$ a year which is $$$ for Apple (they get 30% of that). But Apple wont pay someone for looking through these apps and assure the app at least do something similar to what is advertised.

planb 6y ago
No, the app is free and so you can rate it without paying anything. The In App Purchase to make the app usable is 400$/year.
- lucioperca 6y ago
  That does not change anything.
valuearb 6y ago
I guarantee this app went through review and that none of the scam screens appeared then.
- lucioperca 6y ago
  If they push changes, Apple knows it.
  - BenjiWiebe 6y ago
    Not if both screens were in the code all along, and the scam screen is only enabled when www.example.com/check returns true.

techaddict009 6y ago

So many people have reported this in past: 2017 - https://johnnylin.medium.com/how-to-make-80-000-per-month-on-the-apple-app-store-bdb943862e88 https://johnnylin.medium.com/how-to-make-80-000-per-month-on... 2016 - https://deepakabbot.medium.com/why-is-apple-allowing-a-scam-in-its-app-store-thousands-of-users-are-losing-money-453476d2d161 https://deepakabbot.medium.com/why-is-apple-allowing-a-scam-... Apple seem to have accepted this as even they earn a lot and are not taking any action. Just go to top charts paid apps and you will see maximum of such spammy/scammy apps. Search any utility keyword (Ex: usd converter, etc.) in App Store and maximum out of top rankers are scammers.

lm28469 6y ago

Remember that you pay a 30% fee because they need the money to maintain their infra and to offer a good platform for users to find your app(s). /s

coldtea 6y ago
Yes, so? It's still a 100 billion market they've built, for devices, OSes, and SDKs they build. And it still has better paying customers than the Play store, and 1/50+ less malware (according to stats), so more customer trust. Is it perfect? No.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  >OSes, and SDKs they build They build the OS and SDK on Mac too, why do they not get a % cut on all apps there too? Actually when you're in Safari you're using their OS and SDK too why don't they get a % cut of purchases and software there too? Just interested why one scenario is considered the norm yet these two others that fall under the same justification seem absurd.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >They build the OS and SDK on Mac too, why do they not get a % cut on all apps there too? Because they chose not to for business/historical reasons. So? >Actually when you're in Safari you're using their OS and SDK too why don't they get a % cut of purchases and software there too? Well, technically you're not using their SDK. Just the OS and the browser engine. The SDK is just the JS runtime. That said, they could. And people could use another platform. >Just interested why one scenario is considered the norm yet these two others that fall under the same justification seem absurd. In the end it's a business decision, with historical (e.g. computers didn't have this model in the past, phones/consoles/etc did), market, and other considerations.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    Because it takes time for Apple to migrate everyone over from old expectations, and Apple made a fortune on hardware markup on the computer purchase.

megablast 6y ago

I had one misaligned UI element And it was rejected. What are apple up to?? Do some reviewers just not care?? And neither does apple about bad reviewers.

desmap 6y ago

OT: Most (including me) confuse good products with good business models. Only because a product has killer potential doesn't mean it's based on a good business model and checks all boxes such as defensibility, distribution, lock-ins, dependencies, etc.

drtz 6y ago
A good business model will always have a hard time competing with a fraudulent business model.

mcintyre1994 6y ago

One of the many problems here is that the IAP section in the App Store doesn't seem to support subscriptions at all. Unlock keyboard £14.99 KeyWatch - Watch Keyboard PRO £7.99 KeyWatch - Watch Keyboard VIP £29.49 KeyWatch - Watch Keyboard VIP £2.99 Premium £14.99 That's the IAPs for the scam app. If it wasn't a scam app then £7.99 to unlock all the features might be fine. But £7.99/wk subscription is obviously wildly different, and you wouldn't know that's what's going on from the App Store.

cm2187 6y ago

How does he know it is a $2m a year scammer? It could be run from the room next door of his college dorm.

ikurei 6y ago

An app that does nothing passed review? I hope this doesn't happen often, and that the processes are reviewed. May be reviewers have too much work to do and just click OK sometimes to move on? Also, I understand that the App store has a million apps, and they can't be super thorough with all of them. What I don't understand is how an app that is actually getting a lot of downloads and reviews, and that charges a huge ammount of money, and that is promoted very up in search, doesn't make it to the top of the "let's really review this" priority list.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
swiley 6y ago
The App Store review is about protecting Apple, not the users.
valuearb 6y ago
The scammers scammed App Review, it’s not hard to do or understand. What the reviewers saw isn’t what customers see.
- shawnz 6y ago
  If the scammers are going to the effort to create apps that can actually pass review, why not just sell those apps unaltered?
  - ncann 6y ago
    Because the scammed version is way more profitable? They can code up some buttons in a layout roughly resembling a keyboard that insert the character when clicked on in like 15 minutes which will probably pass review. The "keyboard" of course will be unusable for practical purpose.
    - shawnz 6y ago
      If the "keyboard" wasn't usable for practical purposes then why did it pass review? A stronger review process could refuse such apps. And if the "keyboard" was usable for practical purposes then why would the scammer waste the chance to monetize those practical, working features which they sunk their own time developing?

kelvin0 6y ago

I've heard it called : dancing with the dragon. Refers to the 'power' it gives to developers to soar high on a dragon and wield unknown riches and promise for a time. Then sometime the dragon coughs, and well you get burned to a crisp ... Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Youtube are all dragons (naming only those).

djohnston 6y ago

Walled garden lol! Don't you feel safe?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bawana 6y ago

So then the only recourse is for you to produce 10 cloned apps of YOUR own app-each w a different color, font, and language. Well maybe a hundred clones? each for a different geographical location? Since you own all of them, you would swamp out any competition.

jrochkind1 6y ago
You gotta be as good as the scammers at advertisement-buying and other marketing. That is their real skill-set.

AlexandrB 6y ago

This might be "old man shaking fist at clouds", but was crapware this bad before centralized app stores? I know it was out there - most famously stuffed into SourceForge downloads - but it didn't seem to be as prevalent. Though perhaps it's more a reflection of increased ROI from doing things like this in 2021 vs 2001.

DataGata 6y ago
> was crapware this bad before centralized app stores? Yes, 100% yes. Back in the day, a Boomer web browser was a half a screen of installed toolbars.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
It was even worse back then. At least with the App Store, I can set my parents free on it and they won’t get a keylogger or remote access tool installed unwittingly. Not to mention malware back then slowed the computers down to a crawl and was a pain in the ass if not impossible to remove. Now it’s just holding it and pressing the little x. I remember that reinstalling Windows was a regular thing to do to get rid of the garbage.

newscracker 6y ago

A scammy subscription of $400+ a year?! And this gets to the top of the charts because Apple makes more money from it! These are the instances where the 30% commission (or even the recently announced 15% commission for those earning less than $1M in revenue a year) seems like extortion. Apple really needs to step up on app reviews in terms of false positives (banning legitimate apps for frivolous reasons and reinstating them after social media uproar) and false negatives (allowing scam apps and clones to thrive while hurting the original apps). Hopefully the threats of regulation can’t manifest soon enough for this to get better for the developers and the users. On one side of the equation you have the developers and users for whom the App Store ecosystem is getting toxic. On the other side of the equation you have two parties making a lot of money for low effort — the crooks and Apple. This is not a good look, Tim Apple and Apple. (I don’t even want to get into how much worse the Play Store is since it’s a digression from the topic)

ceejayoz 6y ago
One thing I'd like to see instituted is more extensive review for apps with purchases/subscriptions over a certain value. "If you wanna charge more than $100/year, we're gonna vet it more carefully".
- newscracker 6y ago
  That makes sense. But there would have to be much lower limits even on a weekly and monthly basis. How much lower is a bit subjective (even what seems like a small amount to one person may be a big amount for another). From reviews I’ve seen for some apps, it seems like users don’t even know how to approach Apple for refunds when the app is scammy or doesn’t work as promised. This latter part should also be made easier. All this will require additional staff, which Apple can surely afford without having a big dent in its margins.
- dawnerd 6y ago
  I wonder how much of the app store is purely automated at this point. Any human reviewing this should have spotted that it's a scam very quickly.

maeln 6y ago

This is a problem that poison every platform these days. Apple Store and Play Store are full of borderline or outright scam apps. Google and Facebook keep pushing literal scam or porn-baiting advertisement[0]. Every search engine is poisoned by those shitty top-X, article spamming, fake news website making searching for an answer to some question a real chore. Amazon is full of fake product and scam. Even Steam is now spammed with shitty game that are sometimes not even playable ... The current states of the "mainstream" internet just make it way to easy to make money making the cheapest content possible or scam. And the company / individual running those are usually in country that keep them safe from any legal repercussion so they can keep doing it over and over again. While not everything is easily fixable, a lot would be better if Google, Apple, Amazon and co would finally step in and enforce their "quality control", make every app, ads, etc, go through and actual human verification process, but that would hurt there margin and it looks like they have no incentive in doing that. They usually have a monopoly or at least a duopoly, so why would they care about the cesspool that their services have become ? Its not like another company can compete with them. Want to have a real quality app store ? Its not possible on Apple devices and Google make it as hard as possible. Want to compete with Youtube or Twitch ? Be ready to throw a lot of money to attract customer and creator and still fail (hello Mixer) or become a cesspool either way (hello DailyMotion, rutube, ...). Sure you can try DMCA take down, copyright infringement lawsuit, ... But it will cost you a lot of time and money, which could have been put in your product, and it will be ultimately useless. By the time the request is processed or the lawsuit takes places, they will have already created 10 more clone, push 100 more scam, and other fun stuff. [0] Google literally allowed a ad for a "one night stand" app that use a underage girl in ad: https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/l9y8rz/ya_til_que_moi_qui_est_d%C3%A9rang%C3%A9_par_le_fait_que/ https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/l9y8rz/ya_til_que_m...

gameswithgo 6y ago

The IOS app store being full of garbage is why I can't believe people try to use the "A monopoly store is better because it improves the user experience" angle. To me its worse.

kharak 6y ago

I'm late to the party. But this seems to be a policy problem, no? There needs to be a real incentive for Apple and other platforms to prevent this scams. Off the top of my head, I wonder if you couldn't make Apple have to pay a flat fee and all revenue made from the scam to the lawyer proving that this is a scam. That would create a merket for anti-scam lawyers, resulting in quickly hunting down all scammers on the platform.

z3t4 6y ago

This is what happends if there is a monopoly. And this will eventually kill Apples monopoly.

Shivetya 6y ago

Really wish Apple would limit unlocks to no more than the App cost in the store. As in, if the developer wants to sell you $39 dollars of features, game play items, or such, after you obtain the app they are limited per year to the cost of the app from the initial purchase off the store. The number of apps with obscene monthly and yearly charges that snag people is too numerous to count and Apple doesn't even police this aspect

Someone 6y ago

“Tap to "unlock", and you're now 1 step away from confirming a $416/year subscription.” I would think that “1 step” involves accepting a dialog that shows you this will cost $8 a week. If so, that doesn’t put Apple off the hook (it certainly is a major change from early App Store, when they removed the “I am Rich” app, which was totally honest in what functionality it provided (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich)), but does move some blame to the user. As I said, it doesn’t put Apple off the hook. Even if they think selling such apps is a good idea, I think that, for subscriptions, Apple should mention price per year, too (I guess they don’t, but am not willing to try with such an app). That might prevent many users who scan the dialog, see “$8”, find that reasonable for buying a feature, and click “subscribe” from clicking on that button.

molszanski 6y ago

I have a very strong opinion, that the only way to fix this problem systemically is to have an open system, at least in part. Not some radar or any other closed system, but public lists of sham & shame. If we want to get rid of mold we should shine a light on it

admax88q 6y ago

Oh so i cant actually trust the walles garden apple has curated. Everyone told me that locking my device to the curated app store is for my own safety. Let Apple select the software you can run so that youre safe from scams. Good to know thats not true. I still have to be vigilant _and_ accept heavy restrictions.

chansiky 6y ago

Considering Apple is all about quality, wouldn't it be in apple's best interest to do proper quality checks on the apps in their ecosystem?